Why the triple axel is such a big deal

Anyone old enough to remember when star figure skater Nancy Kerrigan's right knee was struck with a blunt object could tell you a million stories about the woman accused of being involved in the attack, former rival Tonya Harding. But how much could they tell you about what happened to Harding in the years since? Here's why you don't hear much from the disgraced athlete anymore…

Inconsistent success | 0:19
A disadvantage from the start | 0:51
The Kerrigan scandal | 1:16
The world moved on | 2:08
The quiet life | 2:42
Attempted comeback | 3:05
A new sport | 3:39
Her story lives on | 4:05

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At this year's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, we may see quad corks in Big Air Snowboarding or in Freestyle Skiing -- and we'll see quad twists and quad jumps in Figure Skating. But have we reached the limit of what's possible? To do a quad, a skater's got less than a second to turn their body four times in the air. WIRED's Robbie Gonzalez set out to find out why almost impossible.

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Mirai Nagasu made Olympic history when she became the first woman to land a triple axel at the Olympics for Team USA. The difficult figure skating jump has been landed before, but never by an American skater. Why is this so important? You'll have to watch to find out! Have you been following the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics... let us know in the comments below!

Tonya Harding is back on the ice in her latest interview with ABC News. In the interview, she says the ice rink is her “sanctuary.” “I just love it so much. That's why I’m here,” she added. The release of the critically acclaimed movie ‘I, Tonya,’ starring Margot Robbie as Harding, has put the spotlight back on the real figure of the film. She was front and center at the Golden Globes Sunday. Amy Robach spoke to Inside Edition and says the skater feels "her story is finally being told."

Fencing is actually 3 different events. Here's how to tell them apart.

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Two-time Olympian Tonya Harding admitted to Ellen she's glad she's not competing against the current group of figure skaters. Plus, the former athlete revealed what "I, Tonya" got right about her life.

Dialect coach Erik Singer takes a look at idiolects, better known as the specific way one individual speaks. To best break down this concept, Erik analyzes some actors playing real people. Just how close was Jamie Foxx's Ray Charles? What about Cate Blanchett's portrayal of Bob Dylan? Is Daniel Day-Lewis' Lincoln accurate?

Korea's Kim Yu-Na made history at the Vancouver Games, setting a new world record points total in the women's figure skating thanks to an exquisite free skate that will live long in the memory of all those who watched it.

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"I don't know why I cried. This is the first time," the new Olympic figure skating champion Kim Yu-Na told reporters after stepping off the rink. But everyone present at Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum Arena understood why, after witnessing one of the greatest performances and most inspirational evenings in Olympic Winter Games history.

The 19-year-old Korean, dancing to Gershwin's Concerto in G, delivered a mesmerising show of elegance and athleticism. She landed an opening triple lutz-triple toe combination, followed by a perfect triple flip and double axel-double toe-double loop, but just as dazzling as her huge jumps were the breathtaking grace, precision and artistry of the performance.

It earned her a colossal points in her free programme, for a world record score of . Kim's artistry was so exceptional that Japan's Mao Asada was more than 23 points behind in second despite landing two triple Axels.

"She didn't miss a step," said Kim's Canadian coach Brian Orser, himself a former Olympic medallist. "She was skating with her heart. I just wanted her to have an Olympic moment. I wanted it to be Olympic and not cautious, not hold back, just go out and embrace the space, and the Olympic Games."

The bronze medal was won by Canada's Joannie Rochette, who, following her courageous skate in the short programme, had the strength to turn in another remarkable performance just four days after the death of her mother, earning standing ovations from the crowd both before and after her skate. After she had finished, the 24-year-old from Quebec put her hands together and blew a kiss towards the skies.

"I feel proud and the result did not matter. It was a lifetime project for me and my mom, and we achieved that," she said, adding: "She was always proud of me. She was my biggest fan, my best friend. She was with me every step of the way."

Small wonder that on such an emotionally-charged night, the once-impassive Kim should be moved to tears.

"Three times," answered Kim, asked how many times she had cried since winning the gold. "After my performance was over and then on the podium. [Joannie Rochette] started crying, and I started crying right with her."

Watch the rest of Skate Week, and our other sports explainers, here: 2FfxM17

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Note: The video states Mirai Nagasu was the second American to land a triple axel in competition (this was recorded before her Olympic success). In 2005, American Kimmy Miessner completed a triple axel in national competition, though not world competition. You can read about it here: olympics/news/story?id=1967992

Want to see Tonya' Harding's routine? You can find one version here:
watch?v=MdC5G7CDvbI

In this episode of Vox Almanac, Phil Edwards explores the triple axel and why it's such a big deal. The figure skating jump is legendary among ice skaters, from Tonya Harding's 1991 triple axel to modern icon Mirai Nagasu's attempts in competition. It turns out that the physics of the triple axel makes it a uniquely difficult jump — and one worth learning about.

As a forward-edge jump, the mechanics of a triple axel requires technical acumen from skaters while they still try to maintain an artistically interesting performance. Pioneers like Midori Ito and Tonya Harding had to jump, ramp up rotation speed, and then land all while trying to look good. This effort set them apart from competitors like Nancy Kerrigan, but it wasn't easy to land a triple axel in competition.

And that difficulty might be why the triple axel endures as the pinnacle of figure skating performance — and why it's sure to light up the 2018 Winter Olympics as well.

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Here's how a simple mark ends up meaning something big as a great logo. Joe Posner, and Michael Bierut (designer of the Hillary Clinton logo) explain. For more from Michael Bierut on graphic design, check out his book "How to use graphic design to sell things, explain things, make things look better, make people laugh, cry, and (every once in a while) change the world": How-Michael-Bierut/dp/0062413902

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About once a month, there's a new logo to fight about on the internet. The biggest one in recent memory was the highly controversial Hillary Clinton logo, which did not escape scrutiny from either.

But as a designer/filmmaker, something about these repeated discussions struck me as missing the point on what makes logos tick. It often has little to do with the subjective musings. So I called up Michael Bierut, the designer of that Hillary Clinton logo and countless others. He sat down with me and helped explain the elements of a great logo in the video above.

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One man cracked his knuckles in one hand for 60 years and not the other. Watch the video to see what he found out.

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is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out to get up to speed on everything from Kurdistan to the Kim Kardashian app.

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When Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 launched into space in 1977, their mission was to explore the outer solar system, and over the following decade, they did so admirably.

With an 8-track tape memory system and onboard computers that are thousands of times weaker than the phone in your pocket, the two spacecraft sent back an immense amount of imagery and information about the four gas giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

But NASA knew that after the planetary tour was complete, the Voyagers would remain on a trajectory toward interstellar space, having gained enough velocity from Jupiter's gravity to eventually escape the grasp of the sun. Since they will orbit the Milky Way for the foreseeable future, the Voyagers should carry a message from their maker, NASA scientists decided.

The Voyager team tapped famous astronomer and science popularizer Carl Sagan to compose that message. Sagan's committee chose a copper phonograph LP as their medium, and over the course of six weeks they produced the "Golden Record": a collection of sounds and images that will probably outlast all human artifacts on Earth.

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If you have played a claw machine you probably haven't won many prizes and maybe even thought they are rigged. Find out what really happened to your allowance. Follow Phil Edwards and Vox Almanac on Facebook for more: philedwardsinc1/

Read more at 2015/4/3/8339999/claw-machines-rigged

Special thanks to matt3756 for letting us use his great footage: user/matt3756

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Kilroy was here — those three words showed up in a lot of surprising places. Follow Phil Edwards and Vox Almanac on Facebook for more: philedwardsinc1/

We know about the epic drama of World War II, but what about the jokes? The above video tells the story (as best as we can). The iconic piece of graffiti that was known, in America, as "Kilroy Was Here" traveled the world in a fashion remarkably similar to a modern meme.

Read some more background here: 2015/12/11/9886246/kilroy-was-here

Sounds via RiverNile7, Daemeon1427, and JasonElrod, found at .

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Is your napping technique backed up by scientific research? This one is.

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It's counterintuitive, but scientists agree that drinking coffee before napping will give you a stronger boost of energy than either coffee or napping alone. To understand a coffee nap, you have to understand how caffeine affects you. After it's absorbed through your small intestine and passes into your bloodstream, it crosses into your brain. There, it fits into receptors that are normally filled by a similarly shaped molecule called adenosine. Adenosine is a byproduct of brain activity, and when it accumulates at high enough levels, it plugs into these receptors and makes you feel tired. But with the caffeine blocking the receptors, it's unable to do so. Here's the trick of the coffee nap: sleeping naturally clears adenosine from the brain. So if you nap for those 20 minutes, you'll reduce your levels of adenosine just in time for the caffeine to kick in. The caffeine will have less adenosine to compete with, and will thereby be even more effective in making you alert.

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And many more on BBC's mobile app: Sir David Attenborough's Story of Life earth/storyoflife

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Click here to download the Hubble Deep Field images: science/deep_fields/

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They're not just an animal, they're a material. And that's got engineers interested.

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For more information about the Hu lab:

Red imported fire ants (solenopsis invicta) are native to South America and an invasive species in the United States. One of the adaptations that makes them so hardy is that they can build large structures by linking their bodies together. This is how they form rafts that can float during floods. When they're aggregated together, fire ants can be seen as a material and the Hu lab at Georgia Tech has been testing that material for years.

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